https://www.commondreams.org/news/boycott-student-loan-repayment
As resumption of educational debt repayment looms, more than 7 in 10 borrowers say they are taking on extra work, while half say they don't know whether they'll be able to make payments come October.
I think this is an example of what people say in surveys being drastically different than what they'll do in reality.
Today's phrase is "garnish your wages." If their protest doesn't involve moving to another country it's not going to happen. I've thought about it too, but my contingency,for that definitely involves moving to Scandinavia.
Ah bullshit. Civil rights weren't achieved by threatening to leave and not be the oppressor's problem anymore, they were achieved by standing ones ground damned the consequences. No one wants to be a martyr, but that's how battles are unfortunately won, especially against today's brand of fascists.
That's great and all, but the government doesn't really care how they get their money just that they get it. If they want to they will take it from your paychecks (garnished wages). The only way to avoid this is to not have income, work under the table, or move out of country. No amount of refusing to pay will change that. (mass movements/ mass striking might though)
Then people will just take their checks through an LLC and be independent contractors. Or go into business for themselves. Or just revolt.
The last one is the most worrisome.
That's partly why it's so worrisome. 10 years ago, it would have meant something, but now it's too late, and I fear now it will only negatively contribute to climate collapse and cause the genocide we hope to avoid.
I think it might be too late to save the country and we all ought to get several state governments to secede... and if a civil war brews because of that, then it would at least have some semblance of a positive outcome.
More of this. It's time for mass protests instead of complaining and then working a 9 to 5 and browsing Instagram.
The US government: let's enable the economy to get to the point where it's basically impossible for young people to even participate in society.
Also the US government: damn, why do people keep going on suicidal mass shootings? If only there was anything we could do about it.
Ppl need to know that student loans (federal or private) and medical related debts don't impact your credit scores nearly as much as say private loans, mortgage, auto loan, etc.
Right so we should ruin their credit scores so it gets harder to rent (yes rental agencies check) or buy a car (even if they get one, their interest rate will be super high). Better we just fuck people over since they can't afford a house, right?
Ok so I'll move to Ireland, since they speak English and I could keep my job I'm sure I'll have much better luck renting there XD. Go away troll
I have family here asshole. Im not leaving my nieces.
You're a coward for even thinking that is a real option for most people.
I'm just confused as to why it's all fine and dandy that PPP loans were all forgiven regardless of the corrupt practices used for disbursement, but student loans, which impact the economy as a whole far more than PPP ever will, is a must repay.
A lot of wealthy people benefited from PPP loans including House and Senate members, that's why.
Because Republicans will fight so that the rich can get richer by getting handed free money, and Republican will fight so that the working class has to pay back every cent.
The opposite is the truth. If Republicans were as supportive of student debt reform as Democrats were, we would have a major reform bill of some form passed and signed. Maybe it wouldn't be cancellation, but interest free student loans would probably be a thing.
Democrats may disagree and aren't universally behind cancellation, but didn't have enough votes by themselves anyways to make anything happen. Biden tried to enact his personal proposal through executive order, but that got shut down by Republican justices.
So. No. It's not a both parties thing. It's one sided. And if you aren't willing to tell the truth about that, then I have to wonder about your motivations and what you seek to do.
Dems aren’t your friends but the GOP is fascist and we don’t vote for fascists ever. So slag off with the slander.
You can work with people who aren’t your friends towards some goals. You can’t ever work with fascists who want you dead.
Well one big difference is that PPP loans were a one time thing, they are gone now and not coming back for a very long time.
If you paid off all student loans today, there would be more tomorrow, and every day after that. If we do it once, we basically have to keep doing it until school is completely paid for and student loans are no longer a thing.
Forgiving student loans just has a much bigger and longer lasting financial obligation than one time PPP loans.
It didn't seem to be an issue when previous generations went to college essentially for free.
The problem is that we never bothered to create a system where free education would actually work.
Producers always like to sell their goods for as much as they can get. Normally, a consumer looks at a product, decides if it's worth the price and then either buys it or doesn't. If prices are too high, producers are forced to lower them to stay in business.
The current system essentially created a 3 way business transaction that guarantees runaway education costs.
The universities provide a service. It's really hard to determine the value of that service since there isn't a liquid market for "an education" or "a Harvard degree" that you can easily look up.
The government then says they'll cover a percentage of that cost. This is a bit tricky. A normal subsidy is effectively a paying a fraction of the cost. Once you introduce loan forgiveness, either as a frequent or guaranteed event, that fraction effectively goes to 100%.
The student is getting a degree of unknown value but since they don't have to pay (at least not the whole thing) they'll just agree to the purchase, even if they don't personally think the good is worth as much as the provider is charging. There's no reason to if someone is picking up the bill.
The universities see that their price elasticity of demand (how much their sales suffer when they overcharge) is essentially 0. That means they can raise them with impunity. The end result is that Universities can essentially help themselves to large government grants without any requirement to show the public how we benefit from those grants.
If we consider education to be a public good then we should treat it as such. That would mean that we cancel the student loan program, get rid of tax subsidies for educational institutions and just have the federal government create a competing educational system. Take the money we're spending on outsourcing education to the private sector and add to it. For the system to work it would need to attract top tier professors and that means good research facilities and salaries. It's not a complicated idea but it would be a massive undertaking.
As a bonus we'd get some great initialisms. The federal universities would obviously be the FU system. State campuses might have names like FUNY and FUCA.
And yes, the point of such a system is that it would be paid entirely by taxes and would be free to students.
Wouldn't our wages just get garnished or shit repo'd or something? I'm 100% for forgiveness cuz fuck that predatory shit, but this route seems like a guarantee to just exacerbate harm to the borrowers.
Nothing will be repoed. They may garnish your wages but at the end of the day, there is no collateral.
Garnished wages is still a huge problem.
Student loans are not forgiven in bankruptcy.
The federal government will garnish borrowers wages until they are paid, even if the borrower is bankrupt.
They look at your wages and expenses. I knew a dentist who got garnished 10 dollars a month. That’s all he could afford.
You can’t take blood from a turnip
I went to a place and picked some the other day. Ironically picking your own vegetables is more expensive than buying them.
i applied for income based repayment program 3-4 different times, always denied. I was making around 2k/month, and they wanted me to pay $1000/month. after getting rejected the third or fourth time, I just stopped even attempting to handle the debt in good faith.
That is insane. I don't think college should be free but it needs to be less expensive. It shouldn't cost an arm and leg to go to college and cost more than a car. I strongly support a subsidized school system that is reasonably priced. Free just means fewer people would be able to go. That is how most other countries handle the situation. I want everyone to have access to a low cost education to better themselves either for a job or just for personal enjoyment. I am always taking college classes but it has become a strain on my budget.
@wintermute_oregon @jpreston2005
Why shouldn't it be free? I mean if businesses are making A LOT of money from the labour of those who've paid extraordinary amounts for their education - and are no where near providing equal compensation for that labour - then businesses should be paying for ALL education.
I explained why it shouldn't be free. We would have to limit the number of students like the rest of the world does to control the cost. We would close it off to only the brightest and most people would be excluded from a college education. That is how most countries handle college. Only the best get to go and the rest go to trade school or just work other jobs. I want people here to have the chance to better themselves. That is the American dream.
Read my other comments on it. You can get money from the gov (well more than enough to leave)
Where are you going to get the money or skills to get some other country to accept you, though? If you had those, you wouldn't be trying to leave (at least for this reason) in the first place!
This is a fictional situation where a person loaned money to go/finish school. If you went to school, have a shit ton of debt, AND don't want to do anything to improve, sure.
Plenty (PLENTY) of countries take Americans no questions asked. The tough ones to get into are the ones that check your skin color before entry. But for those in particular, just be white and you'll likely get in anyway. Such is life :/
It's not a question of getting in; it's a question of getting in with the kind of visa that allows you to work and being allowed to stay long-term.
For example, even a white engineer like me would have trouble immigrating to somewhere like New Zealand without already having an employer lined up beforehand. The relevant type of visa isn't even accepting new "expressions of interest" right now, LOL.
Using a tiny-ass country as an example of tough immigration is disingenuous. Plenty of places will take you. Open your mind.
I'm considering not paying as long as they're doing the "ease you back into it" stuff like not reporting to credit agencies or garnishing wages. Seems essentially like a forbearance without the interest freeze. It really just depends on what my new payments end up being. But until that dog gets its teeth back, Nelnet can have what's left after I pay my actual bills and buy my weed.
I was with you until you said buying weed comes first. Lol fucking retards all of you.
No, I said paying my actual bills first. AND buying weed. Now go lick on nelnet's tasty boot "r-tard".
"And with enough evaders,
Escaping from the game,
The rule becomes an empty shell
That rules in only name..."
Boycotting only works when there is a noticeable financial hit to the producer. The federal government is not going to notice this. This can be good for campaigning though. Tell people that the reason they are not getting some forgiveness is because Republicans are doing everything they can to block it. Send out some flyers to everyone who has a federal student loan with a list of every Republican official who has had a PPP loan forgiven.
I’m really glad I’m not going through this now, but I would boycott if I were. I fully support these people and hope to goodness they get the relief they need!
Not from America so please someone explain to me, I read Biden wanted to forgive student loans but somehow it didn't get through. Sure it would be much better if the loan is forgiven, but now it is not, shouldn't you still pay back what is owned? They really think they can just not pay and expect no consequences?
These loans are out right predatory. I was offered a 12% interest rate 7 years ago and have friends who've been offered 16%!!!
Yes you can say just don't sign it, but we're 17 years old we can't comprehend how much affect a 16% interest rate will have on you in 8 years and you've been told all your life college is the goto life path and you have to do this to get a "good job" and live a good life.
I agree we should payback the money we loaned, but taking advantage of genz via predatory loans for wanting a higher education is downright criminal in itself.
Adding onto this a lot of us will struggle to make these payments. I have 20k in loans and I haven't paid a dime on EVER. Now I suddenly have a second car payment out of nowhere!
I think those predatory rates are private lenders, but those are still given the same protections to make you pay no matter what as far as I am aware.
You can look up historical interest rates for federal loans. They have never been that high. https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/interest-rates#older-rates
Of course everyone involved knows they will face consequences, but they may feel those consequences are better than the payments. Courts can't garnish paychecks that don't exist and a ruined credit rating only matters if you were ever going to be able to afford to buy a house or car in the first place. Afaik actual jail time isn't really a thing for defaulting on a loan. If the only leverage the government has to get people to pay the loan is to threaten their future financial security, then anyone who thinks the initial promises of security is bogus has nothing to lose.
There's also some people who are willing to take the hit just to send a political message.
That said, I suspect nowhere near 62% of borrowers will actually meaningfully boycott in any way.
Debtor's prisons are actually unconstitutional so they could never jail you for refusing to pay any loan.
He didn't want to. He wanted to go thru the motions. If this mattered he would have executive ordered it and forced Congress to override. Even the Supreme Court can't force the federal government to collect a debt/tax. And given the state of Congress there was no way Congress would override it.
This. For all the shit he did, Trump expanded the executive powers through EO more than any modern president ever has. Biden could have 100% EO'd student loan forgiveness, damned the consequences but chose not to.
Biden not only wanted too, but he made sure he had a backup plan. He found a loophole in Clinton era legislation that allows a president to create income based repayment plans. It's not quite forgiveness, but it's the best he can do with Republicans controlling the house. https://apnews.com/article/student-loans-debt-college-cancellation-forgiveness-34152bb5000128a413efd2287887a37a
If you want true loan forgiveness, vote Democratic.
As I said, he could have instructed them to just not act on or pursue any payments. Let Congress vote to force the executive to do something deeply unpopular.
If the next president reverses the order, then all these people are in the same position and might owe additional interest. Banks know this, so they will hold it against anyone seeking credit. Congress doesn't even have to vote.
With the income based repayment, they aren't considered delinquent on their loans, interest doesn't build, and there is a path towards having the debt forgiven eventually.
The Democrats controlled both the house and the Senate for a time and didn't get it done, or am I misremembering the Democrats controlling both?
When you take Sens Manchin & Sinema into concideration, their control was very weak. It's a miracle the got the IRA done. It was a big F*ing deal.
They will take your house. As someone else said, with student loans there is no collateral. With a mortgage, your home is collateral, so you will forfeit it.
Bad move; the house is collateral. The bank can't foreclose on an education, they definitely can take the house.
Nope, but they sure can garnish wages, claiming they’re entitled to it since they paid for the education that lead to the job
And it starts to be a strain when enough people refuse to pay. If it takes multiple court cases, amd there are a few thousand in a court's district, it's going to get where you can't do anything else because of all the student loan repayment cases.
Plus the possibility of it going to heck. They screw up somewhere, lose, and it multiples. Everyone who took out a loan in PA in 2006 is now eligible to get it discharged for example.
What debt collectors and traffic court people don't want you to know is that as long as you are willing to fight them chances are you will eventually win. And once someone wins a single time it gets established. There was a reason for a while Uber settled everything out of court.
We are going to see an army of lawyers over the next few years suing the government over this while the US government has to spend more and more to get less and less.
So don’t pay and make them work for it.
With the labor shortage right now it would be expensive for loan collectors to hire enough workers to track down and force payments if people stop paying on a large scale.
Not to mention none of those employees would care much about "getting them robbers" either. They'll take whatever paycheck they can get and run.
Only for government-issued loans, I believe. Private loans won't go into auto-garnishing unless you agree to it.
No auto-garnishing but it will hit your credit score and eventually go to collections for garnishing.
Collections can't garnish without your permission. Only the government can force garnishments.
Granted, the lender could sue you for the debt and garnishment could be part of the ruling. But you'll probably know if you've gotten to that point.
For what it's worth, I never paid off my private loans, and they went to collections, but never garnished me. My federal loans did auto-garnish, though.
Lemmy.world is so fucking stupid
You kids have 0 faith in the working people. Fuck credit scores, just don't pay them.
I'll boycott the next cop who drives behind me with flashing reds & blues since I don't have any loans to pay.
The US government gave free money to the banks to hold higher reserves of cash for years.
When are they going to pay that money back?
Because it's a pointless waste of money that'll stop people from getting anywhere in life.
I am not going to repay mine. If I have to make major purchases in another country, I will. If I have to expatriate to escape the debt, I will. But I am not gonna give them a dime of my money, at least until I'm rich enough that paying off the debt won't affect me in any meaningful way.
Fuck them.
Yeah, doubling down won't work either.
There is nothing you can say or do to change the truth behind what I said or convince me to adopt your way of thinking on the matter. I will not pay student loan debt and that's final.
I find this interesting. By all accounts it seems it is unavoidable but to pay it back, so I am really curious how you plan to escape it. College prices are certainly predatory and this whole thing is awful, I just haven't seen a real solution for those suffering. It seems like the new slavery to me. Is there a viable escape?
In my case it's a moot point since I am going back to college to finish my degree next year, and student loan payments are paused while you go to school at least half time.
I think the best plan for people is to do all business through LLCs -- maybe negotiate as a group with your bosses to have checks sent to an LLC where they are then distributed to individual members. They get taxed that way but oh well. I have no idea if companies would do that.
Failing that, conduct all business in crypto. Band together with a group of people, buy land in a remote place, set up mobile homes or RVs there and escape everything.
Ride out the student loan renegotiation process as long as possible.
Expatriate.
Start businesses and then just refuse to garnish employee wages. Switch assets to different LLCs to avoid the IRS.
Try to apply for poverty based forgiveness -- I don't know if that's still a thing or not.
Honestly, if millions of people banded together and just refused to pay the loans outright, and went on strike from them, it could cripple the money lenders and force them to the table to negotiate, and hopefully wipe the debt.
What about younger people who need loans? Your refusal to pay will hurt future generations by making their loans more expensive or just impossible to get.
Fuck them too?
I know that I'm personally gonna blame this one random person on the Internet for all of our student loan problems. Definitely not gonna blame all the systematic issues.
You could have just made college free for them, but you've already proven handily you don't give a fuck about future generations, only yourself. So your opinion and talking points mean nothing
Who is "you" here? The previous person asked a question, and you're blaming them directly. Unless I'm missing a previous comment thread.